18 Months!

I can't believe we have a one-and-a-half year old on our hands! Laurel is getting so big so fast! She is a busy, busy girl with the sweetest little personality!

Here is what Laurel is doing at 18 months!

-Laurel is a still a pretty good eater. Her favorite food is definitely bananas and she gets to excited when she sees them in the grocery store! Some other favorites are black-eyed peas and yogurt.
-She can feed herself with a spoon or a fork, but she still needs our help getting the food on it.
-She loves eating what we eat and if we go out to eat someone, we can no longer get by with having her just share our food.

-Laurel sleeps from about 7:45 pm to 7:30 or 8:00 am. She still takes 2 naps a day. I know that we're nearing the end of her taking two naps though!
-She sleeps with a little blanket, a burp cloth, and the stuffed horse.

-Laurel is so social and loves to be around people!
-When strangers smile at her or talk to her, she pretends to be shy and puts her head on my shoulder, and turns her ahead away, and then turns her head back to them and smile.
-She loves to hand people things.
-When we were out last week, there were a couple teenagers that were sitting down and they were chatting and laughing. Laurel went up to them and just started laughing with them!

Communication:
-Laurel still only says "mama," "dada" and "hey/hi," and she doesn't always say those words consistently. However, she understands SO MUCH.
-It seems like she babbles and "talks" all the time now, but we're just not hearing words we understand yet. Although we're ready for her to start saying words, we're enjoying this cute little stage that Laurel is in right now. Some of what she says sounds like "I see" or "It says"
Her intonation is so amazing to us!
-Even though Laurel's not talking, she makes sure we know what she wants! She will come up to us and grab our hand and take us to whatever it is that she wants.
-A couple months ago, she started doing her version of hand motions to the "Wheels on the Bus" when the song came on when we were in the car. That was her favorite song for awhile. Now she's moved on the "Isty Bitsy Spider" and will do her version of the hand motions for that if I start singing it, or she'll start doing it as soon as the music starts for that song on the CD. She begins even before the singing starts!


-Laurel loves to run around. She loves to go outside and play or just go anywhere where she can just have space to run or walk around.
-Laurel LOVES her baby doll. She carries it around and always comes over to us to put the baby's hat on and the baby's blanket on her.
-She loves playing on our bed.
-She loves playing with our clothes and shoes.
-Laurel will bring you book after book, but she'll barely let you read any of it before she brings another one!
-She loves playing peek-a-boo and hide-and-seek!
-Laurel is becoming my little helper and buddy and I love it!
-We're still working on coloring. She doesn't want to stay still long enough to color!
-We tried play dough and she seemed to kind of get the idea! It helped that she had two older friends playing with it at the table too though.
-She loves her Hide 'Em In Your Heart video and songs.


Some funny things:
-Laurel is funny about the crackers that she eats. At MOPS this week, her teachers told me that she actually ATE one of the animal crackers that they gave her. They've said in the past that she usually gives them this look like, "You've got to be kidding to me." (I have seen that look :) ), and then she wouldn't eat the crackers. This week, her teacher that that she still gave them that look, then decided she wanted one and held out her hand for it, carried it around with her for awhile, and then decided to eat it! Funny girl!

-Last night, Peter read a book to Laurel in a really funny way. Laurel then got down and just looked at him. Then she waved at him and then came over to me and had me read her the book! We could not stop laughing about that!



Those are the main things I can think of! This is such a fun age with Laurel. We're able to do more things with her and we're just constantly amazed at how much she "gets!" We praise God for our sweet little Laurel! We go to the Pediatrician this week, so I'll have her stats then!